Kangaroo Courtship

Over the last three years, I’ve been fortunate to observe some of the Eastern Grey Kangaroo courtship behaviour. In Winter, a new tiny joey peeks out of its mother’s pouch and the dominant male returns to the mob for a while. This year, the new tiny pink face appeared toward the end of June.

The newest addition to the small Kangaroo mob on our property.

While the kangaroos tend to retreat to the bush to mate, they display a lot of courtship behaviour in front of the house. The dominant male will approach a female and she will either hop away from him, or she will turn to face him. If she does the latter, a lot of fore-leg waving and head raising occurs. Usually the male puts his head back and reaches out to the female, placing his paws on her torso or head. She will then respond by raising her head and waving her fore-legs in mid-air. Sometimes this is the end of the matter, and sometimes it is repeated over and over again.

Here are a few photographs I’ve taken recently. More on the mob to follow in a separate post.

This time, two male kangaroos have joined the mob. This one is the dominant male.The male raises his head and reaches out with his fore-legs, touching the female on the torso and head.The female Kangaroo waves her fore-legs at the male. They are too short to touch him.The female watches as the male Kangaroo displays to her.Both kangaroos wave their fore-legs at each other, alternating heads raised into the air and looking at each other.